For a Few Medals More

Saina Nehwal won her bronze medal in London Olympics today. Earlier Vijay Kumar had a silver and Gagan Narang another bronze. It is heartening  to see not just the exceptional talent and hard work of these sports personalities but that India has started to have a place on the extremely competitive and increasingly sophisticated world of international sports.


Sports personalities are among the best role models. Much of national character in modern India can be traced to how we approach our sports. We can all trace our spirits of teamwork, fair play, sportsmanship, determination, respect for rules, and inspired moments in our travails in the field at whatever level.


Visibility of sports also means that allocation of resources in our families would go a little more towards equipment, diet, coaching, and other assorted needs. Aspirations would tilt more towards sports too. Army training centers have captions 'an alert mind in a healthy body'. These achievements make this a higher national aspiration.


At the national level more facilities for sports would hopefully come up and the economics of sports would open entrepreneurial and career opportunities for sportspersons.


A bigger sports fraternity would help remove the stranglehold of pot-bellied politicians from our sports bodies and make them institutions of integrity, fairness, and efficiency. It is quite important that members of this fraternity are groomed into roles of technical and administrative responsibility as the grow in their careers. Coaching today is a sophisticated profession with diverse specialization. Administration of sports in a country as diverse as India needs solid academic and professional foundations.


Sports personalities as national ambassadors around the world can grow or tar the national image and its brand equity. India is lucky to have many such personalities who are great advertisement for India both in terms of capability and character.


Saina said her bronze would inspire youngsters. In a way it was good that it was bronze so that the youngsters know there is gold to go for!

Maruti Unrest

The incident at Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki has been highly disturbing. I wrote in Times of India's comments the following:

"'This is a litmus test for India. India's response to this would tell the world as well as India's own entrepreneurs and professionals how things will shape up for India in future. This was not an unrest but a systematic, criminal, brutal, and highly damaging attack. Such attacks do not take place without political groups being deeply involved. India has allowed its politicians to operate with massively corrupt and criminal practices that can manipulate state and non-state machinery. Enterprises of all sizes have had to contend with pressures from them. This is one time when India needs to unequivocally respond to the conspirators and perpetrators and show that rule of law stands supreme. Governments should be held directly accountable and a failure on their part to allow this situation should disqualify them from power. Parties with involvement like this should be banned from elections individually and collectively. The deterrence needs to be that strong. This violence is striking at the very root of India. India's future is at stake. And, India needs to be decisive."

And, then I saw another comment of an ex-employee of Maruti who referred to the pent up frustration of the employees who are required to follow a very strict discipline in Maruti. Having lived in Japan for nearly half of my career I am aware how strict that discipline can be. And it can also be rather insensitive, even cruel. However, when that is mixed with Indian style indifference it can become suffocating. This person claimed that the canteen in Maruti is 20 minutes away when the lunch break is 30 min.

The Japanese systems are designed for harmony. Everybody dresses the same, acts the same, differs in the most muted ways. But India is diversity personified in every sense of the word.

So, while I have no sympathy for the conspirators and perpetrators of the violence I think Maruti's challenge is not how to move from Manesar to Gujarat but to find the right balance between the working cultures of India and Japan.

I believe that both cultures stand to gain if an honest fusion is done.

Innovation in China

Much of modern innovation has been from rich countries. And then there is a slew of news of innovation from China - fast supercomputers, fast trains, modern stealth fighters, large dams and so on. It runs deeper as McKinsey report - A CEO’s guide to innovation in China - explains in some detail. 

The GDP of China at $6+ tr is well in the range where developed countries have been for many decades. So financial resources available for creating a broad based ecosystem for innovation do exist. Additionally, institutions, labs, and abundant supply of young minds create a conducive environment for sustained innovation.

At $1.8 tr of GDP much of the above holds for India too. However, we need to make innovation - and by corollary, research - an attractive proposition for individuals and enterprises together. Our economy needs to grow in multiple dimensions and not remain lopsided towards services alone.

Research and innovation need a widespread network where working professionals, academics, full-time researchers can collaborate pursuing bigger goals with bite-sized innovations at massive scale.

The future of nations is a battle of ingenuity.

Exciting times, challenging times, and times to stand up and be counted!

Too Services Heavy?

The current decade is meant to be a 'make-or-break' decade for India. The notion that India has somehow 'arrived' or 'destined' appears to be a gross exaggeration unless some key challenges are overcome. There are challenges that retard and challenges that we need to overcome to become empowered and capable. 

The ones that retard include:

1. Corruption
2. Political disquiet
3. Bureaucratic sluggishness
4. Chronic laziness

Empowerment comes from:

1.  Infrastructure development
2. Energy security
3. Skills development
4. Entrepreneurship

A bigger structural problem is the fact that the productivity of our agriculture has become stagnant for over two decades now, and manufacturing accounts for a relatively small share of the economy. Services alone are unlikely to carry India down the growth path on a sustained basis.

While infrastructure and energy are predominantly issues of capital availability the last two - skills development and entrepreneurship - need massive collaboration of human networks to train and mentor. I look forward to participate in these as PanIIT Alumni initiatives and other collaborations.

IIT/K's Place Under the Sun

IIT/K in its initial years was generally considered the odd one by most. Bureaucrats in the government were exasperated at the radical ideas and thoughts that went into building this institution. Universities, and even other IITs were a lot more conforming to the thinking of the time.

IITs were not meant to be 'me too' institutes. It was therefore in the fitness of things that people creating these institutions thought out of the box.

But that was then. India did not have many great institutions, self-confidence was relatively low, resources were scarcer, and role models rare.

It's different today. A fairly fast growing economy, young population that is a lot more aware, confident, and ambitious, infrastructure and social indicators that could be better but are quite enough to launch a thousand (make it a few millions, or hundreds of millions) dreams.

Crucially, IITs then were in nascent stages without a significant number of alumni. IIT alumni today are estimated to be about 150,000 now with  experience profiles from 0 to 50 years. They are found in most geographies, in most fields, and in all variety of career types.

Premier institutes are meant to provide leadership in thought, training, and action.

IITs do have to carry out that role.

Typical talks on IITs surround around what IITs could do in the field of education, research, and transformation. The focus really should be on helping IITians accomplish a lot more than they have in the past.

It is generally believed that IITians have by and large been successful in most fields they have ventured into. There are plenty of iconic individuals with stellar achievements next to their names.

Yet, these are individual successes. There is no institutionalized mechanism or forum where sharing of vision, values, dreams, goals, strategies, and resources that can catalyze the IIT community to make a 100x mark on the world.

We need to come up with a shared vision and SWOT of contemporary India and the world at large as seen by a premier university and its alumni.

The ecosystem needs to facilitate IITians to become great performers both individually and as a community leveraging the synergies of ideas, resourcefulness, resources, collaborations and so on.

Entrepreneurship is one such area. In many ways the success factors presented by the contemporary ecosystem for entrepreneurs are still quite fragmented and obscure. A lot of false starts and eddy currents can be removed in the journey of the budding entrepreneurs by the many who have 'been there, done that'. A virtual Silicon Valley serving the community of IITians is critically needed with a fairly ambitious agenda.

Why the virtual Silicon Valley for IITians?

Quite simply Silicon Valley is about shared values, attitudes, passions, and dreams. IITians from all campuses always talk about how easy it is to break ice and get along with other IITians. So shared ingredients do exist.

This virtual Silicon Valley should help succeed IITians at least at the scale that the one in California. In fact, Brand IIT should make a much bigger impact in the happening country that India is today.

What about the IITs when the focus is on IITians?

IITs are great nuclei to anchor these initiatives serving the community that is wildly dispersed in both space and time.

The Mentoring Program is a great initiative and I hope it is a firm and forward step towards the goals above.